Psychiatric Research Ignited By AI, VR, Gaming.

A psychiatric disorder has attracted the interest of researchers at Yale University, who are using a computer game to understand feelings of social rejection in people with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Rather than relying on subjective observations, as in psychiatry, the researchers use artificial intelligence and virtual reality to construct a game to observe the behavior of participants with and without BPD in a digital environment with controlled conditions. In one case study, participants passed a ball back and forth in a computer game, allowing researchers understand how those with BPD recognize and process social rejection. Results showed that when computer-controlled players who passed the ball back and forth between themselves, participants felt sadness and anger in as few as six rounds of play. Even when the BPD participants received the ball more times than the other players, they felt less sad, but still felt sad. Using technology to analyze the psychiatric disorder helped researchers to better understand BPD sufferers’ behaviors. Researchers hope contiuned collaborative research will ultimately lead to the discovery of what causes the disorder.